Rise to the Challenge
by Vestal Virgin
Summary: A response to a challenge from Black Jaguar: "They fall in love with Captain Janeway, they wake up with me." This story takes place directly after Hunters and finds J/C regretting their news from home, and Chakotay burying his own grief to comfort Kathryn with a bottle of Irish whiskey. You know if I wrote it, fluff ensues!


**The challenge: An opening line or basis for a fic: "They fall in love with Captain Janeway, they wake up with me."**

**Disclaimer: Yes, Paramount/CBS owns them. I promise to return them slightly used but much happier.**

Chakotay kept a close eye on her during Neelix's party. While most of the crew was eager to celebrate receiving news from home, neither he nor Kathryn had cause to laugh. He had found out that most of his friends in the Maquis had been summarily slaughtered. She had received a subspace Dear John letter from her now former fiancé. Not even this rare time of relaxation could cheer either of them.

Kathryn mingled around the party and kept a smile plastered to her face, but he knew her well enough to recognize that she was faking it for the sake of her crew. After watching her get caught gazing through the window yet another time, he finally approached her. He stepped up close and quietly said, "I think we both could use a real drink. How about if I meet you in your quarters, and we'll sample the Irish whiskey? My treat." He was hoping she couldn't resist the Irish reference.

He could see the hesitation in her eyes, but then she relaxed and said gratefully, "I would like that. My quarters in five minutes?" He nodded, thanked Neelix for the party, and left to slowly make his way to her quarters.

He was relieved she said yes. If he could concentrate on cheering her up, he didn't have to think about his own grief. He would have to deal with it eventually, but the shock was still too new, and he felt more numb than anything. All of the Maquis knew they lived a precarious existence, but so many deaths at one time were too much for his mind to wrap around. He pushed away the memories of names and faces and looked forward to the burn of real alcohol getting him through this night.

He meandered the corridors for five minutes, then punched the chime on Kathryn's door. When he entered at her call, he went to the replicator and ordered a whole bottle of the whiskey, alcohol, no synthehol. She raised her eyebrows at him and said, "That bad, huh?"

He retrieved the bottle and smiled hesitantly. "A first officer should always be prepared." She chuckled as he filled the two glasses waiting on the table. She had removed her jacket, so he did the same before carrying the bottle and glasses over to where she sat on the couch. He sat in the chair beside her and took a long draught of the alcohol. "The party was nice," he said.

"Yes, the crew seemed to be having fun." She twirled her glass in her fingers and watched the amber liquid swirl.

"Kathryn, you can talk about him if you want to. I know this can't be easy for you."

She reclined her head against the back of the sofa and said, "Really, I'm not surprised he moved on. I'm not even convinced I still believed we were a couple. He had become my safety net more than anything."

"You still love him, though," he said.

"In a way."

"What do you mean?"

"I loved Mark because he was comfortable. Even before I left to take command of _Voyager_, though, I wondered if he would end up like all the rest." She raised her head and took a sip of the whiskey before looking at Chakotay. "Haven't you ever wondered why I was 38-years old, unmarried, and childless when you met me?"

He thought about it. "No, not really. After all, I was older, unmarried, and childless."

She smiled. "I suppose so. I just assumed you were too much of a playboy to settle down."

He looked genuinely hurt. "Is that really how you think of me?"

"No, not now. After I got to know you, I could see that my assessment of you was wrong. But when we first met? Yes, I did."

He laughed and took another drink. "I don't know whether to be offended or flattered." She refilled their glasses and leaned back into the cushion again. "What did you mean about Mark ending up like all the rest?" he asked.

She sighed and glanced over at him. "I haven't exactly been lucky in love, as the old saying goes. After Justin died, I did have a few serious relationships before Mark. It was always the same thing, though. They fell in love with Captain Janeway, they woke up with me."

"So, what was the problem?"

"That was the problem, Chakotay. I _am_ Captain Kathryn Janeway, always. I don't change. The woman you see in uniform is the woman I am in a dress. I'm straightforward, assertive, intelligent, fiercely independent, and often dominating. That is who I am, and I won't change for anybody."

"You shouldn't have to, Kathryn. You are also compassionate, kind, love to smile and laugh, and willing to give anybody a second chance to do what's right and correct mistakes."

She set down her glass and a half-smile lit her face. "Few of the men in my life have been willing to put up with me long enough to find out those things."

"If that was the way those other men treated you, then maybe it was not you they fell in love with, but the idea of conquering you."

"I'm not easy, Chakotay." She watched the tattoo rise up his forehead with his brow. Her cheeks flushed, and she quickly clarified, "I didn't mean 'easy' that way." He laughed and filled their glasses again. She said, "I meant I'm not easy to live with, and I am certainly not easy to conquer."

"Half of the Delta Quadrant knows that by now," he smirked. "As for easy to live with, I thought we did just fine."

She peered at him over the rim of her glass. "Yes, but you were stuck with me with nowhere to run. Besides, we were not in a relationship."

"Weren't we?" he asked innocently.

"What do you mean, 'weren't we'?"

"We were the only two people on New Earth. We depended on each other for the same things that people do in a relationship: support, encouragement, companionship, someone to talk to and share thoughts and ideas."

"We weren't intimate," she said, waving her glass at him.

Maybe the alcohol had loosened his tongue, because he heard himself say, "That wasn't for lack of trying." He grinned as she swatted his arm and laughed.

"If that is your definition of a relationship, then we've been in one for four years." She was teasing until she heard his barely audible words.

"Yes, we have." He caught her deep blue gaze and held it, willing – challenging – her to respond. She blinked, and they both picked up their glasses and drained the amber whiskey. He leaned to the low table and picked up the bottle. She didn't protest when he filled her glass for the fourth time, and was already sipping from it by the time he filled his own.

He had to do something to break the tension he had caused, so he grinned at her and said, "I'm your safe date. Anytime you need an escort, my arm is yours."

Her eyes sparkled. "I never really thought of it that way. I guess you're right, though. I always depend on you to be there, no matter what." She took a deep breath and blurted out, "You have never failed me."

"Where would I hide, Kathryn? It's a small ship, and you always find me." His words were joking, but his eyes told a different story – a tale of devotion, loyalty, and hope.

"Yes, I do," she said with a grin. "That's another problem. I'm stubborn and determined."

"Those aren't problems; those are challenges. I've learned to love challenges." Half the liquor in his glass disappeared while he drank for the distraction. _Get off this subject, Chakotay. Don't push._ His mind knew what he should do, but his whiskey-numbed mouth didn't obey. "You are not a problem to be solved. You're a challenge that makes me better myself to meet every day."

The dark pools of his eyes washed over her, and she knew she was losing the fight against herself. Was it rebound from Mark? No, it had been over with him in her mind for too long. Was it the liquor? The loneliness? The knowledge that Chakotay was the only man she had ever known that didn't try to change her?

She wanted to break away from his stare but was unable to do so. Her mind shouted at her. _Say something, Kathryn! Don't just sit here. _She cleared her throat and asked, "Are you happy, Chakotay?" _Where did that come from?_

His brown eyes searched her face before dropping to his glass in his hands. "Most of the time."

"You mean when we aren't fighting for our lives and trying yet again to save the ship?"

"No, Kathryn. I mean when we aren't fighting each other and what we feel." _Gods, Chakotay! What are you thinking?_

She stood up from the couch and moved to the other end, turning her back to him and gazing through the bulkhead window. She rubbed the back of her neck as she saw his reflection looking at her. "I'm tired of fighting," she said quietly. She slowly turned in his direction, and her delicate fingers stilled under the collar of her turtleneck. _Say it, Kathryn! How many more chances is he going to give you before he grows tired, too?_ "I'm tired of fighting what I feel for you."

He rose from his chair and approached her. "Then don't fight it anymore," he pleaded. "You said you have been unlucky in love. I fell in love with Captain Janeway a long time ago, and I would give up everything to wake up with you." He glided the back of his fingers along her cheek and watched her head tilt to his touch. He clasped the nape of her neck and softly pressed his lips to hers, giving her the opportunity to pull away and praying to the Spirits that she wouldn't.

She leaned into him, and her hands gripped his shoulder blades as her eyes closed and her heart opened. The glowing ember of her attraction to him that she had tightly suppressed for so long burst into flames. He felt the change in her arc like an EM surge between them, and suddenly, the kiss was desperate, tongues and lips and teeth and moans colliding. Their bodies met, arms wrapped around each other, and the last vestiges of hesitancy and rational thought flew apart with the stars racing past the window.

She tugged at his shirt, and he broke the kiss just long enough for her to snatch it off. He tugged at hers, and she raised her arms as it slid over her head to the floor. She didn't know how, but her bra was suddenly missing from her breasts to be replaced by his warm hands and teasing fingertips. Nipples hardened, chills raced, and the distinction between her sounds and his blurred. Their tongues somehow remained joined when she was lifted into his arms and carried toward the bedroom.

He laid her on the bed and bent to her nipple, suckling and teasing before the air cooled it as he moved to the other one. She held his head to her breast and pushed against him, the darts of his tongue maddeningly light as her body screamed for more. He gave in to her insistence, and his teeth bit and scraped the mound of flesh. Her moans raced straight to his hardened member, and he rose up to rid them both of the rest of their clothing. Boots thudded to the floor, material rustled, legs kicked to aid the removal, and then they faced each other as eyes ravaged nude bodies.

She flipped him onto his back, and her tongue sought his as her hands raced to touch every part of him. He sucked in his breath when she grasped his erection, and his fingers sought the damp heat between her legs. He held his fingertips against the hood of her clit and let her show him where and how she wanted it. When a sharp moan echoed around him, he took up the chase and played over the sensitive spot. She pumped his shaft, and his hips bucked upward with the slide of her soft skin. When the sensations threatened to overwhelm him, he pulled himself from her grasp and rolled her over.

Kathryn whimpered at the loss of contact with him, but only for the brief seconds it took for her whimper to become a shuddering gasp. As soon as her back was on the mattress, his lips were clamped around the bundle of nerves where his fingers had been. Her legs couldn't decide whether to stiffen or bend or wrap around him, and he pushed down on her pelvis to keep her in range of the tip of his tongue. Her hands gripped the back of his head, and her back arched as the need for release burned through her. Her head curled forward as her hips pushed against his hold, and he sucked her clit while the flat of his tongue scraped across it. She cried out with the first wave of her orgasm and felt his hum against her push her to an even stronger second wave. Course after course rolled through her until she was spent and eased her hold on his head. He pushed his tongue inside her and licked his way through her folds as she tugged him upward.

He wiped his face on her belly and crawled up her body, taking his erection in hand. He guided himself to her opening to be enveloped in her wet heat. Her husky voice whispered, "I love you, Chakotay." He lifted his chest onto his hands to lose himself in the blue seas of her gaze as his deepened voice said, "I love you, Kathryn Janeway, for who you are, always."

Her inner muscles clenched around him, he thrust into her blinding beauty, and their joining fueled the spinning of the universe in the perfection intended from the beginning of time. She pulled him down fully on top of her, clinging to every inch of his heated skin against hers. His nips on her neck surged through her limbs as his primal dance reached to the very depths of her soul. She felt her climax building again as he filled her, claimed her, and set her free. Soft cries, deep whispers, halting breaths, and quickened hearts soared in a firestorm of two souls locked in the embrace of love's passionate purity.

His breaths in her ear became growls with the thickening of his shaft inside of her. Her nails dug into his back, his grip under her shoulders tightened, and a final hiss through her teeth met the rising cry from deep in his chest. In a single instant that halted time and folded space upon itself, they shattered in each other's arms. Together, they rode the crest of white light that burst forth from a newborn bonding as ancient as love itself.

Neither of them could say when the world returned and the flames began to cool. They remained together, holding to each other and tenderly kissing lips, cheeks, noses, and necks. After an eternity, or perhaps only moments, he slid to her side and pulled her to him to wrap her limbs over his. In the embrace of gentle caresses and affirmations of hearts inextricably entwined, they drifted into dreamless sleep together. Captain Kathryn Janeway had found the love she was destined for, and Chakotay would wake up with her every morning and rise to her challenge for the rest of their lives.


End file.
